Dear Ray,
Very recently I heard via email from two different people who I’d not seen or spoken to for ages, like serious ages, decades, like since before email was invented! They’d kindly tracked me down in order to pass on the news that you died a few days before.
I know that you and I had drifted as friends and relegated ourselves to the Christmas and Birthday card exchanges relationship, and that was, I suppose, fine. Time communicating and working together on the various projects that tracked along with our lives and initially brought us together, and the associated socialising, must have come to its natural conclusion. Either that or it was my fault. If it was, and I was in some way in the wrong for this ‘drifting’ then I apologise, especially if this in some way hurt you.
I’m not too good with keeping in touch with people, and it seems, when I do examine my ways, that I follow a pattern of surrounding myself with a small group of people for a very short while and then moving on and surround myself with a totally different group of people. It’s like being Doctor Who with constantly changing travelling companions, but not as fun or as scary.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to make this note about me. But, to get it back to you I have to explain how I reacted when I heard that you had died, so it’s still about me for a mo, I’m afraid.
Well, when I got the news I was extremely shocked to be honest (surely people like you just don’t die … do they?), and then I felt quite badly guilty that it had been so long since I’d communicated with you other than via Christmas and Birthday cards. Plus, of course, I started to think about the different things we’d done, been involved in, and smiled about the funny bits. I was taking stock, kind of, and realised I’d known you since I was either a late teenager or a very early twenty-something. You’d been there as I went in and out of relationships and lifestyles and fortune and jobs and, well, all my life until the last decade or so. In perspective, that was and is a very long time.
Time is not kind to me and my long distance recall, so I obviously don’t remember every single waking moment of “Uncle Ray” as we all called you, but I do remember and cherish the memories that are important. There were fun moments, laugh out loud moments, and just moments. I don’t recall there being any truly bad moments. You were for me and for so many others a ‘rock’, although as a bit of a private person I kept myself to myself, whilst I know others over the years were able to seriously lean on you during their bad times. This was one of your gifts and something for which I suspect you were never properly ever thanked.
You had consistency and honesty, and were ‘there’ when so many needed the counsel of a wise old owl. Above all, deep inside you weren’t judgemental, and accepted people for who and what they were. Ok, yes, maybe there were wicked times when people would fall foul of pranks or ribbing, but none of it was done with true malice. You were there as a bit of stability and a ‘constant’ in the changing world of those who, like myself, were lucky enough to have shared small periods of their life with you.
I recall that when I first met you it was after you had gone through a very traumatic and heartbreaking time that had changed for you and badly hurt you. You were in a lot of emotional pain, but would hold it down in order to try to move on and to repair yourself. We were almost part of your therapy, but it turned into something much nicer than just that! I recall your pride about your two (grown-up) children and how you enjoyed everything about them. I recall tales of your work and your pride about being allowed to run like an unleashed gazelle in that famous institution without bringing down the fabric of capitalism and society! I recall you adjusting to retirement and throwing yourself more fully into the various projects that brought so many of us together.
I can’t think of 78rpm records without thinking of you, nor old cockney songs from shows. I don’t know why but “Knees up Mother Brown” keeps coming into my head recently and a range of similar ditties. That’s not code for anything, just a bloody song that keeps going round in my head.
You were a good man.
I recall your hat and your laugh. And your smile. And your tales. Yes, I recall you.
I never had a chance to say thank you for these memories and recollections. I guess that’s not something humans do anyway, well not until its too late. I know it’s too late now really, but thanks Ray. Thanks for the memories. Thanks for having lived.
Yours,
Christopher
England's England 